by philipmartin
I hired out on the Pennsy at the end of 1956, in the reservation bureau, on the 7th Avenue side of the old station. Eddy McConnin was in charge of it. One day I went down to the bull pen, and asked the clerk for a time table. He refused, saying that I looked like a rail fan. When I saw him later, in the reservation bureau, he apologized saying I should have told him I was an employee. I was a rail fan though. We had a Missouri Pacific lithographed metal wall calendar, depicting one of their steam passenger trains. It was the kind with a pocket you put the number of the day into. When our quarters closed, I asked for it and they said yes.
The Simmons-Boardman Guide came out every month; but the Pennsy didn't buy new guides for each employee every month; but filtered older guides down to those less in need. A few years before, I had been in Penn Station, and saw a laundry cart full of used guides destined for various offices. So I got one.
At the beginning of 1957, they moved the reservation functions down to the new ticket area; and we did it all; reservations tickets and telephone information, (PE6-6000 or PE6-2000, maybe.) The old Intelex machines for reservations were gone; we had closed circuit TV instead. I forget how we worked it, but the TV camera was focussed on depictions of available space. For punching out tickets, we had Ticketeers with matrixes you stuck in them, to print the tickets. Each matrix had a destination, type of ticket and the fare on it. We also sold New Haven and Lehigh Valley tickets at their own areas at the ticket counter. When I got back in 1983 with NJ Transit, the Ticketeers were still there, but on their last legs. When we moved down from the reservation bureau in '57, they told us that we could go to the Long Island level ticket office, and become LIRR employees, if we wanted to. That operation was taken over by the LIRR at that time.
Also at that time, the government rescinded the sales tax on railroad tickets, and the Pennsy promptly increased the fares by the amount of the old tax.
After a few months, I got furloughed; and went to the towers, the first one being JO, (which had a plate on the machine that said "cabin D.") All the towers in New York had speakers. When a train report came over, if it was for them, the operators would drop what they were doing, and copy it. When JO let a train go east, he would get on the speaker and announce "F and R, JO on one, or F and H, JO on one, or F and Q, JO on two; and give the report.
At KN, which had a stub end yard, you had to be careful not to make a sandwich; putting a train in on top of one that was supposed to come out. C and KN worked together moving trains, and maybe there was a yardmaster too, telling KN where to put the trains.
The train director at A was like a dispatcher, assigning tracks, and issuing train orders.
The original track layout had been changed to make it more efficient, but an old time operator, Joe Zarra, told me how they had moved a huge number of trains through the station on some Memorial Day, after World War I.
The Simmons-Boardman Guide came out every month; but the Pennsy didn't buy new guides for each employee every month; but filtered older guides down to those less in need. A few years before, I had been in Penn Station, and saw a laundry cart full of used guides destined for various offices. So I got one.
At the beginning of 1957, they moved the reservation functions down to the new ticket area; and we did it all; reservations tickets and telephone information, (PE6-6000 or PE6-2000, maybe.) The old Intelex machines for reservations were gone; we had closed circuit TV instead. I forget how we worked it, but the TV camera was focussed on depictions of available space. For punching out tickets, we had Ticketeers with matrixes you stuck in them, to print the tickets. Each matrix had a destination, type of ticket and the fare on it. We also sold New Haven and Lehigh Valley tickets at their own areas at the ticket counter. When I got back in 1983 with NJ Transit, the Ticketeers were still there, but on their last legs. When we moved down from the reservation bureau in '57, they told us that we could go to the Long Island level ticket office, and become LIRR employees, if we wanted to. That operation was taken over by the LIRR at that time.
Also at that time, the government rescinded the sales tax on railroad tickets, and the Pennsy promptly increased the fares by the amount of the old tax.
After a few months, I got furloughed; and went to the towers, the first one being JO, (which had a plate on the machine that said "cabin D.") All the towers in New York had speakers. When a train report came over, if it was for them, the operators would drop what they were doing, and copy it. When JO let a train go east, he would get on the speaker and announce "F and R, JO on one, or F and H, JO on one, or F and Q, JO on two; and give the report.
At KN, which had a stub end yard, you had to be careful not to make a sandwich; putting a train in on top of one that was supposed to come out. C and KN worked together moving trains, and maybe there was a yardmaster too, telling KN where to put the trains.
The train director at A was like a dispatcher, assigning tracks, and issuing train orders.
The original track layout had been changed to make it more efficient, but an old time operator, Joe Zarra, told me how they had moved a huge number of trains through the station on some Memorial Day, after World War I.
